It’s just under seven days until polls close in this part of Oregon for the Nov. 5 General Election while I write this explanation of how we’re covering Tuesday night and what comes next.
I’m writing it late Tuesday night, because I have a print newspaper to get to our printers by Wednesday afternoon and it’s crunch time.
I’ll be pulling late nights from now until well past the election, and let me be nakedly honest: This is the time of year when running a solo newsroom is the most exhausting.
If you’re reading this and you don’t have a subscription, please consider getting one now. It’s ok, I’ll wait. I’ve been doing this mostly alone for seven years and I am tired. My goal is to hire a full-time journalist so I can more than double the amount of journalism in Banks. Every subscription gets us a little closer to that goal.
If you’re unable to do so, or you already do and you want to pitch in a little to my personal Election Night pizza fund, my Venmo is @chashundley. It’s tradition in journalism circles to endure the late night of reporting election results with the help of pizza. I’ve even heard some journalists indulge in a little bit of whiskey, preferably a bourbon or strong rye.
Ok, here’s how Tuesday night works for the Banks Post & Gales Creek Journal.
First off, you don’t need a subscription to get election results in this newspaper. Readers at bankspost.com and galescreekjournal.com can get our election night stories and every subsequent election update until results are certified completely free.
While we rely on subscriptions more heavily than most newspapers thanks to the rural nature of our territory (fewer businesses mean fewer advertisers), I believe that anyone should be able to read the results of elections regardless of their subscription status.
There’s no paywall Tuesday night.
If you’re looking for information on voting, head here. You’ll find ballot drop sites, ways to get help if you have a question, and more.
At 8 p.m., polls close.
Seconds later, the Oregon Secretary of State will publish the initial election results to results.oregonvotes.gov. This will be the first of several updates throughout the night. We’ll publish vote tally updates based on when the Washington County Elections Division publishes new numbers, rather than the state.
At 8:01 p.m., we’ll publish our first story, unless the secretary of state website crashes, which has happened before. A lot of people feverishly clicking “refresh” on their browser can do that. Sorry.
We’re a hyperlocal newspaper, so our first stories — written in advance with everything but the initial results (see “I’ll be pulling late nights” above) — will be the Banks mayor and City Council races, followed by the Tualatin Soil and Water Conservation District races, then House District 31, then state and congressional results, and finally, current Oregon and national results for the presidential race.
For some state and congressional results, we’ll be using the work of the Oregon Capital Chronicle, a nonprofit online newsroom focused on Oregon state government that licenses their work for use by other news publications.
We’ll also add contextual information like current voter turnout, and any developments from campaigns as they become available.
We don’t “call” races. What we do is tell you what we see. If a candidate or measure is ahead by 5 percentage votes in the second round of results, you’ll see something like “so and so is on track to win their election in early results.”
Because Oregon allows ballots that were postmarked by election day to be counted up to seven days after the election, it can take awhile to know the outcome of very close races, too, so Tuesday night may not yield an outcome.
Past Tuesday
The Washington County Elections Division typically notifies our newsroom and others when they plan to release updated ballot counts as they come in past Election Day. I’ll publish updated stories every time there’s a significant change as a result of these updates.
When it looks like a candidate for a local race we’re covering is certain to win, I’ll reach out to them for a quote on their victory and publish it with an updated count.
And of course, we’ll be following the winners in their work for the rest of their term, at government meetings, at community events, in the letters and documents we use in our stories and in stories examining the impact our elected leaders have on the shape of our communities.
Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to vote!
P.S. Grab a subscription now and use code VOTE for 25% off your first year or month.
Chas Hundley is the editor of the Banks Post and sister news publications the Gales Creek Journal and the Salmonberry Magazine. He grew up in Gales Creek and has a cat.
